Several Injured as In-Flight Disturbance Hits A Delta Airlines Flight into Sydney

Several people have been injured following a Delta jet from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced rough air on Friday morning.

The flight, numbered 41 "experienced a brief period of turbulence" as it made its approach and landed at Sydney Airport, a company official told. Four flight attendants were injured.

Local paramedics reported they evaluated five patients, and transported three to a medical facility with non-life-threatening injuries that comprised spinal discomfort and head pain. The injured were between their thirties and seventies.

It is the newest example of commercial jets experiencing turbulence, with researchers indicating that global warming is a major factor.

The aircraft was carrying nearly 250 travelers and fifteen staff members on the aircraft, the representative said, stating that the plane landed "safely and normally" at the airport at shortly before 7 a.m. on Friday morning.

Emergency responders said they got a call just a mere three minutes before the plane arrived, and response teams were ready and waiting at the airport.

Why in-flight bumpiness is getting more frequent - and often stronger.

In the previous year, twenty-five passengers and crew sustained injuries when a Delta Airlines flight, on a route from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam, experienced "significant" turbulence just two hours into the lengthy trip, and had to make an unscheduled landing.

Recently, passengers and crew on a certain international flight experienced a frightening brief five-second bout of severe turbulence. A traveler lost their life and many were hurt, as those without seatbelts were thrown from their seats and fell back down.

Turbulence is not uncommon during flights, and while cases of significant turbulence appear to be increasing, they are still very rare.

Estimates show that there are approximately thousands of instances of significant in-flight disturbance every year, out of a sum of more than 35 million aircraft departures that now take off worldwide.

Intense turbulence is categorized as when the sudden jolts of a plane experiencing disturbed air exert more than 1.5 times the force of gravity on your body - a strong enough force to lift you out of your seat if you weren't wearing a safety belt.

As global warming shifts weather patterns, experts warn that air travel could become more turbulent: warming trends and altered air currents in the higher altitudes are likely to increase the regularity and severity of significant turbulence.